An Open Letter to Ian Fletcher

You tirelessly export – from your brain to the rest of us – the notion that economists and the general public should be much more skeptical of free trade. Your blog post “Ten Problems With Free Trade[2]” is a good example of your argument.

Not only is your argument produced outside of the Boudreaux household – and not only do you, its producer, make it available to my son and myself free of charge (hence, at a price below your cost of production) – you also make it available free of charge to all of the many readers whose time and attention I compete for with my own blog, Cafe Hayek. Competition from you – a non-Boudreauxian – unfairly threatens my market share in the blogosphere!

So I shall adopt your recommendation and, from here on in, stop importing your output – for it is output that is foreign to my household and that undermines my ability to peddle my intellectual wares to potential readers. My importing your writings is, as the logic of your own argument attests, quite likely harmful to myself, to my son, and to our economic future. Caring to protect my and my son’s sovereignty and prosperity, I hereby impose an impenetrable barrier around my household to repel any imports that you send our way.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux

Update: Immediately after I posted this entry I checked the comments on my previous post[3]. I discovered that Art Carden makes a nearly identical point!